In electrostatic and thermal printing, printheads are used which typically comprise multiple substrates of printhead circuitry laminated together to form a single unit. In general, both electrostatic and thermal printheads contain one or more arrays of electrodes separated from a ground source by a substrate layer. Thermal printheads principally differ from electrostatic printheads by the addition of resistive material disposed along the length of the writing surface of the head and connecting the electrodes to the ground source.
Fabrication of electrostatic and thermal printheads by laminating multiple layers of substrates is expensive. The more layers and the more complex the structure, the longer, the more detailed and the more expensive must be the manufacture of a printhead.